Parrot Noise Levels

[applejack]

Whenever I see posts like these, I always think back to picking up my husband from work. He's an aircraft mechanic in the Air Force and works on C-17 fuel carrier jets. A few times, I have gone to get him and one of the jets has been taking off, or revving its engines. He works right on the runway, and the parking lot where I'd wait for him is directly next to the runway. When those jets got going...omg, it was unbelievable. The noise would practically knock you over it was so loud. When we were looking at parrots, one store had a hyacinth macaw (belonged to the store owner), and when we walked in, it started screaming. The owner was like..."see how loud they can be?"

My husband and I just looked at each other and we both said "it's nothing compared to a C-17 taking off!" My husband has been around jet engines for the past eight years, and I have had my share. After that experience, parrots are not loud to me Although, in full disclosure, I have never heard a Moluccan scream, except on youtube. What I can't STAND are the high-pitched noisemakers, like conures or caiques. They just go right through me. Not because of loudness, but because of pitch. Even budgies make me want to tear my hair out.

 

[Holiday]

This is interesting thread. LOUDNESS does not bother me as long as it is not intermittent or repeated throughout the day.

Mabel (severe macaw) is my LOUDEST, LOUDEST, LOUDEST and most abrasive noise maker, but she is only loud for less than 30 seconds each day. Somedays she doesn't make any noise at all.

Emma (african grey) is the one who can annoy me most when it comes to noise making. Her sounds are not loud, but occasionally she'll decided that it is fun to click, beep and honk for a 10 minutes or longer, take a break and then repeat shortly after.
I find it most annoying when I am trying to get some sleep. I usually resort to turning on the air purifiers and fans full blast in her room as well as in my room in order to drown out the noise. If I had an M2 who only made noise as often as Mabel that would be fine.

Yeah, I agree about intermittent vs. continuous making it easier to handle, but on the other hand, when you get up around 125 decibels or more, you're in a whole different realm. Every bird here from p'let to Red Front is in the normal range of quiet to loud. But, Elvis is in a league of her own when she roars. It actually hurts. It makes you drop what you're holding to clasp your hands over your ears (she loves to make me drop the laundry basket as I walk by her stand--she laughs up a storm and says "bad, that's bad! Sorry!" ). The glass in the windows literally vibrates. You can literally hear her outside from hundreds of yards away. I literally HAD to buy a home without close neighbors (one reason why I'm in a flood zone, if anyone was wondering). I cannot imagine living with a bird louder than she is, even if it only screamed once a day.

 

[Holiday]

Whenever I see posts like these, I always think back to picking up my husband from work. He's an aircraft mechanic in the Air Force and works on C-17 fuel carrier jets. A few times, I have gone to get him and one of the jets has been taking off, or revving its engines. He works right on the runway, and the parking lot where I'd wait for him is directly next to the runway. When those jets got going...omg, it was unbelievable. The noise would practically knock you over it was so loud. When we were looking at parrots, one store had a hyacinth macaw (belonged to the store owner), and when we walked in, it started screaming. The owner was like..."see how loud they can be?"

My husband and I just looked at each other and we both said "it's nothing compared to a C-17 taking off!" My husband has been around jet engines for the past eight years, and I have had my share. After that experience, parrots are not loud to me Although, in full disclosure, I have never heard a Moluccan scream, except on youtube. What I can't STAND are the high-pitched noisemakers, like conures or caiques. They just go right through me. Not because of loudness, but because of pitch. Even budgies make me want to tear my hair out.

Yeah, macs are not as loud as a jet engine, and no one that I know of has made that claim; neither are M2s, for that matter. If a big M2 is, at its very loudest, 135 db, then it's easily 5-10 db or more less than ordinary jet engine. The decibel scale is a logarithmic scale; it's not linear. So, each increment of 3 dB corresponds to sound that has twice as much energy (not twice as loud in perception, but still). And, loudness is a subjective thing, like I said above. People might perceive a particular sound to be twice as loud when there is actually a ten times increase in energy. According to some things I've read, most people can't tell differences in loudness of less than 3 dB, so, our ears are not very fine-tuned at all. That's why we need sound meters.

Now, I've been around guns all my life, and I know how loud a gun blast is, subjectively depending on the gauge or caliber. Elvis is not nearly as loud as a 12 gauge shot gun or .44 magnum (without hearing protection)--I've read that they can be 160-165 db, and the short-term deafness and ringing in the ears that one experiences afterward, even standing a little distance away, tells me just how loud that is and that my bird doesn't even come close. I'm sure some jet engines are just as loud or louder too.

But, when my B&G does her angry roar (not her normal scream but her roar) she seems as loud to me as, say, a .22 pistol a few yards away, which produces a loud "crack" at close range (I've seen them estimated in the 140s to 150s db? The chart I posted earlier lists "gun blast" in the 140s and clearly means a small caliber gun blast). A .22 doesn't have the incredibly loud "blast" sound of a shotgun or larger caliber pistol. But, the truth is that different people perceive sounds differently, and these estimated charts you see online never can get at the exact db of any individual gun, engine, or bird, because they're just general guides. One thing we can say for sure is this: an M2 seems to have been measured at its loudest at 135 db. That is well above the pain threshold, and approaching, but not achieving, the loudness of a jet engine or small calibre gun blast. And that is not something most people want going off randomly in their homes.

 

[Saemma]

Professional hearing protectors have helped me to accept that sometimes Mabel needs to be LOUD and it's ok. I'm truly surprised that you don't own a pair already.

This item has also helped me retain my hearing and sanity.

 

[applejack]

Yeah, macs are not as loud as a jet engine, and no one that I know of has made that claim; neither are M2s, for that matter. If a big M2 is, at its very loudest, 135 db, then it's easily 5-10 db or more less than ordinary jet engine. The decibel scale is a logarithmic scale; it's not linear. So, each increment of 3 dB corresponds to sound that has twice as much energy (not twice as loud in perception, but still). And, loudness is a subjective thing, like I said above. People might perceive a particular sound to be twice as loud when there is actually a ten times increase in energy. According to some things I've read, most people can't tell differences in loudness of less than 3 dB, so, our ears are not very fine-tuned at all. That's why we need sound meters.

Now, I've been around guns all my life, and I know how loud a gun blast is, subjectively depending on the gauge or caliber. Elvis is not nearly as loud as a 12 gauge shot gun or .44 magnum (without hearing protection)--I've read that they can be 160-165 db, and the short-term deafness and ringing in the ears that one experiences afterward, even standing a little distance away, tells me just how loud that is and that my bird doesn't even come close. I'm sure some jet engines are just as loud or louder too.

But, when my B&G does her angry roar (not her normal scream but her roar) she seems as loud to me as, say, a .22 pistol a few yards away, which produces a loud "crack" at close range (I've seen them estimated in the 140s to 150s db? The chart I posted earlier lists "gun blast" in the 140s and clearly means a small caliber gun blast). A .22 doesn't have the incredibly loud "blast" sound of a shotgun or larger caliber pistol. But, the truth is that different people perceive sounds differently, and these estimated charts you see online never can get at the exact db of any individual gun, engine, or bird, because they're just general guides. One thing we can say for sure is this: an M2 seems to have been measured at its loudest at 135 db. That is well above the pain threshold, and approaching, but not achieving, the loudness of a jet engine or small calibre gun blast. And that is not something most people want going off randomly in their homes.

Oh, I'm not saying anybody made this claim, I'm just talking about my own personal experience and how I process the sounds. I do agree birds are loud. No argument there! I guess the *quality* of sound is different to me. Jets have this awful whining thing, even more than the stereotypical roar of the engines, it like underpins the roar, and that goes right through my brain. Macaw screams don't have those same levels, which makes them much more bearable to me. I've been around guns too, for most of my life, and they don't even bother me the way a jet does. Yet I also can't stand the sound of balloons popping.

I guess the point I was trying to make (and honestly it was mostly in jest) is that sound is totally subjective, and what one person considers bearable, another might not. That's why when people ask about bird sound levels, it is hard to make a fair assessment. Sure, they're less loud to me than jet engines, but to someone who has never heard a jet engine up close, or a gun go off, then a macaw scream might be completely intolerable. It's a personal thing. I don't *enjoy* any sort of bird screaming . I don't think anyone does, nor is it something you want randomly going off at any point! But it is a reality of bird ownership, obviously, and I can deal with it maybe in a different way than some other people can because I have been around different qualities of sound and I use those qualities as comparisons. That's really all I was trying to say.

 

[Holiday]

Oh, I'm not saying anybody made this claim, I'm just talking about my own personal experience and how I process the sounds. I do agree birds are loud. No argument there! I guess the *quality* of sound is different to me. Jets have this awful whining thing, even more than the stereotypical roar of the engines, it like underpins the roar, and that goes right through my brain. Macaw screams don't have those same levels, which makes them much more bearable to me. I've been around guns too, for most of my life, and they don't even bother me the way a jet does. Yet I also can't stand the sound of balloons popping.

I guess the point I was trying to make (and honestly it was mostly in jest) is that sound is totally subjective, and what one person considers bearable, another might not. That's why when people ask about bird sound levels, it is hard to make a fair assessment. Sure, they're less loud to me than jet engines, but to someone who has never heard a jet engine up close, or a gun go off, then a macaw scream might be completely intolerable. It's a personal thing. I don't *enjoy* any sort of bird screaming . I don't think anyone does, nor is it something you want randomly going off at any point! But it is a reality of bird ownership, obviously, and I can deal with it maybe in a different way than some other people can because I have been around different qualities of sound and I use those qualities as comparisons. That's really all I was trying to say.

Oh, I wasn't arguing with you. I was agreeing with you , based on my experience with guns (which are listed with plane engines in the chart). But, I did want to clarify for others about the 3 db increments and what you were saying about the jet engines. If a jet engine is 5 db louder than an M2, then that means much, much louder than most people would think based on only an increase of "5" in the chart

Pitch is a whole different thing, and I'm like you, can't stand high-pitched noises, but that's totally an individual thing, and it's registered separately from loudness level .

 

[Screechless]

Having owned both tiels and Greys, I would definitely say that those 2 should be switched, if we're talking about sheer potential. I think Greys are only really loud when they're completely spooked poop-less (and even some of their sounds out of fear are very low and soft). Tiels are just loud for fun.